The last couple of weeks I talked about writing 86,000 words, and how I overcame narration issues.

What I haven’t talked about is my journey to get where I am.

I used to talk about depression.

How I fight with it, how I get through it every day, and how my life has changed because of the TM technique.

I want to move away from TM, not because I stopped, I never will, but because writing about TM isn’t my focus.

I write stories because its one of the couple of things I’m decent at, making cocktails, and baking the others.

I feel better after writing than at any time during my day. When I edit, sometimes I feel that way, though it is editing so its not always sunshine and rainbows.

I have goals for this year.

I’ll be working on them one at a time. I have books to publish this year. Last year I didn’t understand a couple of things. It took me longer to figure out how to fix certain areas of my writing. Narration was one I spent a few months adjusting.

Today, as the years moves forward, I know better about how to write and I’ll keep going.

The process it different than it used to be. Writing a lot of words wasn’t something I’d ever done. But things change.

As humans we can either change things or left hoping the world changes for us. Here’s a hint, it never will. We have to change, we have to do the work.

What are you doing to change, either in your life, writing, or other things? Tell me about it.

Last week I finished the most recent novel. I posted on Instagram (one of the few Social Media I have)about how quickly I completed it.

There were numerous comments of “congratulations” “wow”, and this got me thinking.

How many writers are out there struggling to get their word counts. I’m usually one of them, but for the past month, I haven’t been.

It started with figuring out how I wrote another novel and why I completed it so quickly.

The other book was written using a beat sheet, but when I finished it I realized the writing felt stilted and false. The one rule I’ve stuck to in my writing is tell the truth. No matter what the truth is in the story, tell it.

The other thing I did in that novel was a timer. I would write, unencumbered, that means no stops to fix punctuation. I took what I liked, the timer, and modified it.

I would write a book, using twenty-five minute sprints, with a five minute break in between.

The first day I only wrote 1860 words. The second day, I wrote 2700 words. When a part of the story felt wrong, I’d fix it. When punctuation was needed, I’d changed it. I would stop to adjust story issues along the way, but I would keep to my timers and their five-minute breaks.

My average was around 3000 words a day. But I completed that draft in one month and four days. I started on December 1st, finished on January 4th.

I’d never written that quickly and completing another book made me happy.

This year isn’t about writing books, it will be about publishing them or getting representation. Last year I submitted a novel to twelve agents, all of them but one rejected it. That one left the agency and no longer works in publishing.

I’m working that book with my writing group. Meanwhile, I’ll be writing more stories, creating new worlds and now that I’m eight books in, I’m figuring things out better.

There are moments in life when we’re taking our time, creating things, and something from our past rears its ugly head.

This happened the other day.

I’ve written since middle school. It’s only been in the last five years I decided to take my writing seriously. The main reason I decided to pursue my writing full-time is that of my wife’s encouragement.

Before that time I’d only done it on the side and never considered my writing worthy of publication.

Then, something happened. Someone told me I’d never be a writer. That I’d never do what I love doing. It was a hard blow. Afterward, I contemplated a lot of things, suicide one of them.

Then, I realized something. That person didn’t know who I was and had no interest in discovering the person I was.

It wasn’t that they said those words, it was more that I took it to heart. I believed them. I felt like they were right about me.

Today, life is different. I understand that person didn’t know me and never cared to.

Without my wife’s encouragement, I’m not sure I would have continued to write.

I’m at a crossroads with my writing. Do I keep going, take a chance, and struggle a little more or do I quit?

After all, I’ve done in my life I only have a couple of things I’m proud of: My wife, my kids, and my writing.

I’ve written seven novels, over a hundred short stories but I haven’t published any of them. Maybe that person’s words influenced my thinking for a few years afterward. Now, I don’t feel that way.

The road used to be cluttered with doubt and fear. Today, I that same road is full of possibilities.

I’ve found the way through. I found it on my own and now it’s time to crush it.

I intended to write a project for NaNoWriMo, then I realized there are three novels that need edits. I hit 5k on the NaNo project but it will have to wait until I’ve edited the three novels.

It will take me a while before I’m able to tackle something of long form. I have ideas for more novels, one that I know will be the next one I write.

I wrote two novels this past year, both of them need editing. One of them still needs a first pass.

I have a big fear in doing this: I often worry something won’t get written because I’m editing or writing short form. I’m not sure where this idea comes from. I’ve written about it before.

I have stories to write. and one of my goals for this year is being published. This hasn’t happened. I believe its because I haven’t been editing.

I’ve talked about this editing issue numerous times. I thought it would interfere with my creative process, what I’ve learned is it’s part of my creative process. Without learning how to fix story issues I’d have fifty novels written, none edited, which was where I was headed before making this decision.

For the rest of the year I’ll only be writing short stories, focusing on improving my problem areas, narration, dialogue, and visuals. I’ll be editing the three novels into the new year. The short stories I’m writing will go through an editing process after I feel the novels are in decent shape.

I love creating new stories, but I don’t want to have fifty novels written and none of them edited. Yes, my writing is improving, thanks to the writing group I joined and determination, but I feel its time to step away from writing novels for a while. It’s time edit the work I’ve already done.

I want what any writer wants, I want to see my books published. They won’t get there without improvement.

I follow a lot of various motivators on social media, Gary Vaynerchuk, Lewis Howes, Tom Bilyeu, and others. I follow these people for various reasons. I love Gary’s honesty, Lewis Howes the same. I follow Tom because I love his podcast.

There is something that’s been nagging me about following these motivators. I shouldn’t need them. I should be able to write without having someone tell me to keep going.

But that’s the problem, I don’t. It doesn’t compute that I can’t do this myself. I need that kick in the ass every once in a while.

Today was a good example. Gary posted on Instagram about doing one thing that makes you uncomfortable.

My thing is editing. I feel like the time I spend editing is the time I could be writing. I also feel that I’m doing it wrong. That there is some magical formula to editing. After writing seven novels, I feel like it should get easier to edit, it doesn’t.

The fact that I’ve written seven novels and I’ve only submitted one of them to agents is appalling to me. It didn’t use to be. I thought I’d get better at writing through writing, I was wrong. I get better through editing.

It’s taken me thirteen years to realize this. It shouldn’t have taken this long.

When I finished my first novel, a vampire book that I love, I thought I’ll just keep rewriting. There are 8 drafts of that novel on my hard drive. None of them will ever come out. At the time there was no one, other than my wife to bounce ideas off of. Now that I have a writing group, I feel like I can do this.

Editing is the hardest part of writing. The taking away of pieces I loved in the draft, moving them around and creating a coherent, cohesive story is more important than writing something new.

I hate that it has taken this long to understand this.

Here’s what I’ll be doing to finish, truly finish the last three novels I’ve written: By the end of March 2019 I’ll be editing each novel through my writing group. I’ll post the progress on Delusions of Ink for each project.

What are you doing that makes you uncomfortable? Tell me in the comments. Let us keep each other going.